A few weeks ago we took the Pheasants to the flight pen at the farm.
Even though there were plenty of weeds for cover we left their brooder box in the pen so they could sleep ‘at home’ if they wanted to.
When they first realized they were “free” they flew around like the wild birds they are. Unfortunately they were still small so some of them made it out of the net.
Last year Logan forgot to nail down the lid to the brooder box before the flight pen was complete. We ended up chasing 80 baby pheasants around with a fishing net. We caught most of them!
This year with a bit of experience behind him Logan was able to catch all of the escapee’s.
Logan built this new feedbox for the flight pen. The idea here is to keep the birds as wild as possible which means limiting their exposure to people. This feed box holds over 4 big bags of feed so they can go weeks without human contact.
The water situation was a bit more complex.
This water barrel is burried in the ground just outside the pen. There is a hose running water out and a hose bringing water back in.
The solar panel powers the pump that pulls the water up into the pipe where the birds drink.
When the pipe gets too full gravity pulls the water through the second hose and back into the water barrel. The constant circulation of the water should keep it from freezing in the winter as well as limiting the number of times we have to be around the birds.
